Images

Visual information is everywhere online, and the importance of being visually literate cannot be overstated. Visual literacy has been identified as an essential literacy by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills; and with the development of the tools and contributory capacity of Web 2.0, it is critical that schools focus on helping students acquire the skills necessary to navigate, evaluate, and to communicate with visual information. Read more at Web 2.0 and the New Visual Literacy.

Will Richardson, author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, provides several convincing reasons for using images to deepen and stretch meaning:

• Images supplemented with notes and details provide a rich tapestry of the learner's current understanding
• Images can be used as a means of inquiry - to reflect, to predict, and to question
• Images verbalize a learner's visualization of read text.

Image Generators

• Comic Strip Generator
• Blue Mountain
• Image Chef
• Image Generator
• Big Huge Labs - Create customized motivational signs and posters
• Wordle

Comics generators

• ToonDoo
• Bubblr
• Makebeliefscomix
• GoAnimate

Playing with Images

• Copyright-friendly images and sound
• Flickr's Creative Commons Pool: Browse through the images provided by Flickr users who have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license. A Flickr Advanced Search also allows you to search for these images easily.
• Flickr Free Use Photos Photo sharing, no attribution necessary
• Flickr Storm (select appropriate Creative Common license from pull-down menu)
• Creative Commons
• Creative Commons Videos
• TagGallery Creates a globe of Flickr images
• Pic App Quality stock images
• MagMyPic - Fake magazine covers
• TypoGenerator - Create a poster from images and letters
• Swivel - Create graphs with data

Slide Shows

• Pictobowser
• BubbleShare
• RockYou - see the slideshows posted on this teacher's classroom blog
• Animoto
• Slide